Need to know

• The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 is tightening rules on auto-renewing subscriptions.

• High street firms can step in helping to unpack exit clauses and challenge rollover memberships.

Welcome to TSL’s Weekly Edge, whether you’re aiming for a regional or high-street practice, or just want to get a feel for how law works in the real world beyond textbooks, you’re in the right place. 

No corporate jargon, no massive deals, just real useful information designed to give you that extra edge in your legal journey.

🧠Wilson’s Weekly Wisdom

Take every win, no matter how small!

Even now, as I head into the final couple of months of my training contract, I’m still learning. And I probably always will be. Most documents will always come back with something changed. Sometimes it’s substance. Often it’s just personal preference. Every handler has their own way of doing things, and that’s part of the job.

But every so often instead you receive an email which simply says “Great work”. There are few workplace highs that hit quite like this one. It’s a small win. No fanfare. No announcement to the office. But inside, there’s that quiet sense of achievement. Learn to enjoy the little wins.

📣 Your Turn: Ask Us Anything (Almost)

Got a question that’s been quietly bugging you about the legal world, commercial awareness, or how regional firms actually work day to day? Good. We want it.

Each month, we’ll pick a question and do a an editorial response. Just honest, practical answers you can actually use in applications, interviews, and real conversations in firms.

If you’re wondering it, chances are someone else is too. So be brave, be curious, and send it in.

👉 Submit your question here!

💡Spotlight Article

Ever sign up for something thinking it would be no hassle?

It could be a show to stream, a gym membership, or some app you’ll forget about in a week. It always looks fine at first. The price seems reasonable, the offer feels straightforward.

Then the small print works its way in, and before you know it, you’re stuck paying for something you hardly remember agreeing to. 

🔎What’s happening? 

Back in 2024, the government reckoned unwanted subscriptions were costing people around £1.6 billion a year. That’s almost unbelievable when you think about it.

It’s not just Netflix or gyms anymore, it’s everything now!

Food delivery apps, magazines, random monthly snack boxes. The problem is, the payments keep going out, customer service disappears into the void, and people end up feeling trapped in deals they didn’t even mean to keep.

To get a handle on this situation, the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (DMCC) brought in new rules for subscription contracts.

Under Part 4, Chapter 2 of the DMCC, businesses are going to have to:

• Be clear about what people are signing up for.

• Send reminders before free trials end or renewals kick in.

• Make it easy to leave instead of turning cancellation into an escape room.

Sounds wonderful, you might say!

The only issue is that it’s not fully in place yet. The government still needs to sort out the detailed regulations, and what was meant to be ready by Spring 2026 has been pushed back.

For now, we’re going to continue relying on the existing consumer rules, mainly the Consumer Rights Act 2015 (CRA), and the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 (CCR). These laws are there to stop companies sneaking in unfair terms. 

So if something doesn’t feel quite right, like auto-renewals that weren’t agreed to, contracts locking folks in for over a year, random mid-contract price hikes, or big service changes, people can challenge it, and regulators like the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), and local Trading Standards can step in if businesses are taking the mick.

When it comes down to it, the point of it all is simple: consumers shouldn’t be exploited because they didn’t read five pages of tiny print!

❓ Why it matters to high street firms

This is exactly the kind of everyday hullabaloo people bring to solicitors.

Think about this: someone stuck in a 24-month rollover gym membership they can’t escape. Someone’s suddenly paying more for a snack subscription that just bumped the price overnight. Or someone’s trying to cancel a fitness app but getting sent through umpteen screens and hidden forms.

It’s infuriating, granted, but how could solicitors take the sting off these situations?

They can help by:

• Giving the fine print the twice-over: Checking whether the terms are clear and fair under the CRA and the CCR. If a gym renewal clause is buried or the lock-in period is ridiculous, that’s a red flag.

• Nipping things in the bud: Helping people cancel before months of pointless payments rack up. For small businesses, making sure their contracts aren’t going to land them in trouble. Nobody wants to be known as the company with sneaky terms.

• Fighting for what you’re owed: A solicitor might fight for compensation due, especially if a person’s been overcharged, stressed out, or messed around. That might mean negotiating directly or going down the small claims route if needed.

As you may now realise, with the right advice and guidance, getting out of subscription traps doesn’t have to be a climbing Mount Olympus type of situation.

Auto Renewals

 This is as classic an issue as you can get.

The subscription just carries on automatically unless you jump through hoops to stop it.

Businesses are supposed to warn customers, make cancellation straightforward, and not use unfair tactics.